Visiting Russian scholar delivers Dec. 4 honors lecture

December 2, 2013

Sergei Kukharenko, a visiting professor to Bemidji State University from Russia, will deliver an Honors Council Lecture on “soft power,” a Chinese policy of creating a positive image of China in order to attract more people to admire Chinese language and culture and want to visit China.

Kukharenko’s presentation, “Chinese Soft Power Policy,” will be held Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. in Hagg-Sauer 112 on the Bemidji State campus. Honors Council Lectures are open to the public free of charge.

Kukharenko wrote his doctoral thesis on Chinese migration to western Europe and interaction with the host community.

Between 2004-07, he worked as an instructor in Russia under the Stanford University Initiative of distance learning. From 2008-11, he worked as a head of the regional department of a Russian right-wing liberal party and from 2006 until present as the head of international programs and project department at Balgoveschensk State Pedagogical University in Russia.

Kukharenko is an author of a number of articles including some on Chinese foreign policy and Chinese “soft power,” a term introduced by an American political scientist Joseph Nye to indicate a nation taking a foreign policy position of attraction rather than coercion.

The Honors Council Lecture Series is hosted by the Bemidji State University Honors Council. The council is the advisory group to the honors program comprised of 12 faculty members from each of the University’s colleges. Student representatives are also elected to the council by their cohorts for one-year terms.